Blog

As you read this, two of our members are on a flight to Ireland. There, BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka and BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley will meet with activists from 36 countries at the First International Conference Against U.S./NATO Military Bases. Ajamu and Margaret serve on the Executive Committee of the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases, the organizer of this historic gathering. The coalition is comprised of activists from across the U.S. political spectrum, but we are unified by the hope that this weekend will further internationalize the U.S.-based anti-war movement.

Watch the conference livestream at noforeignbases.org. If you don’t want to miss a thing, remember Dublin is 5 hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast, Canada’s Quebec province, the Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The conference starts at 2 p.m., Eastern Standard Time. On Saturday and Sunday, the conference begins at 4 a.m., EST.

Our petition to shut down AFRICOM is now in six languages! You can read it in Arabic, English, French, German, Spanish and Vietnamese. Please sign and share it online. If you want to be able to print out and circulate the petition in your communities, universities and elsewhere, click here.

Election Day in the United States passed with no substantive discussion of war and U.S. militarism, the issue that occupies the attention of peoples around the world who face U.S. military aggression. This year, we’ve raised less than $20,000 by appealing to ordinary people like you who seek peace and justice. We have been able to accomplish more than million-dollar operations because we have something they don’t—a historical imperative that is rooted in being the oppressed, being the ones in the cross hairs of state violence and repression. By November 20, we need to raise $1,500 to support five of our activists to attend the Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference (SHROC) next month in Atlanta. Please give what you can.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) asks friends of Palestine, movements for justice and liberation, and Palestinian and Arab communities everywhere in the world to demonstrate solidarity with Gaza while it is under attack.

Celebrate BAP's second anniversary on April 4 in Washington, D.C., as we demonstrate against the transnational ruling class desecrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday by holding a huge party to honor NATO's 70th anniversary on that day.

Black is Black Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations (BIB) held its annual march on the White House and its national conference last weekend. Watch livestreams of the conference, where many activists including BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley, and BAP members Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford spoke. Watch the videos of Ajamu and Nellie, and this livestream of Margaret and Glen.

We are happy Palestinian activist and author Susan Abulhawa has been released after being detained and deported by the settler-colonial state of Israel after trying to enter Palestine, her homeland, for a literature festival. Abulhawa had served alongside Ajamu and BAP Coordinating Committee member Jaribu Hill as a juror at the International Tribunal on U.S. Colonial Crime in Puerto Rico. The petition we asked you to sign demanding her entrance to Palestine garnered more than 2,500 signatures in just a few hours.

We have reached close to 1,300 signatures on our petition to shut down AFRICOM! Help us get to 1,500 signatures by Sunday by sharing this link. Want to be able to print out and circulate the petition? Click here. While you’re at our campaign page, check out the latest media interviews, including BAP member Netfa Freeman’s chat with The Peace Report.

Celebrate BAP's second anniversary on April 4 in Washington, D.C., as we demonstrate against the transnational ruling class desecrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday by holding a huge party to honor NATO's 70th anniversary on that day.

Palestinian activist and author Susan Abulhawa has been detained by the settler-colonial state of Israel after trying to enter Palestine, her homeland, for a literature festival. Demonstrate solidarity with our Palestinian sister by signing this petition demanding her release! Below, you see her posing with Ajamu Baraka at the tribunal where they both served as jurors on Saturday.

Ajamu Baraka appeared on RT’s “In Question” to discuss our U.S. Out of Africa! campaign, as well as the rationale behind the tribunal. BAP member Netfa Freeman appeared in a Facebook livestream that you can also find on YouTube.

The Black is Black Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations (BIB) Chairman Omali Yeshitela also spoke to Black Agenda Report Radio about the devastating impact of the U.S. military occupation of Africa through AFRICOM, which denies self-determination to the entire continent. “Self-determination is the highest expression of democracy,” he said. Self-determination “is what we are fighting for, and that’s what people throughout the Americas and the world are fighting for.”

Last week, several BAP members participated in the Women’s March on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., including YahNé Ndgo and Charo Mina-Rojas, who spoke to the crowd of 1,500 people marching for an end to all wars. Both women provided valuable perspectives as African diasporic women from the United States and Colombia, both settler-colonial states. Watch their talks, which were captured by Consortium News.

On Sunday, we hit 1,000 signatures on our petition to shut down AFRICOM! Help us get to 1,500 signatures by next week by sharing this link.

Please also attend these events:

African peoples are asked to participate in the Black Is Back Coalition’s (BIB) November 3 March on the White House in Washington, D.C., and the BIB conference on November 4.

Now that Trump’s military parade is canceled due to mass pressure, BAP is helping organize Peace Congress: End All U.S. Wars at Home and Abroad, being held November 10 in Washington, D.C. BAP Coordinating Committee member Netfa Freeman will speak at this event.

BAP members Ajamu Baraka, Charo Mina-Rojas, Jose Monzon, and YahNé Ndgo joined about 1,500 of some of the most dedicated people in the country to march Sunday with Cindy Sheehan in the Women’s March on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) continues to stress war is a class issue—but it is also a race and gender issue, with people of color, women, and LGBTQIA2S and non-binary people disproportionately suffering. It is unfortunate forces associated with the “resistance,” who allow themselves to be called forth whenever the Democratic Party beckons, have failed to understand the importance of opposing the permanent war agenda of the duopoly. Opposing this agenda is also why we will be out in force to support the next mobilization in Washington, D.C., called by the Black Is Back Coalition on November 3 as well as the Peace Congress being organized for the week afterward. This really is shaping up to be an Anti-war Autumn.

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka also spoke with Lee Camp of “Redacted Tonight” about the importance of re-invigorating Black internationalist forces to build an anti-war, anti-imperialist movement inside the imperial core. And BAP member Netfa Freeman wrote about the connection between the attack on Black communities in the United States and the U.S. occupation of Africa in Black Star News.

Join Ajamu Baraka and representatives from the Black Is Back Coalition and the United National Antiwar Coalition for a panel discussion to “End the Wars at Home and Abroad” October 31 in New York City.

African peoples are asked to participate in the Black Is Back Coalition’s November 3 March on the White House in Washington, D.C.

BAP Coordinating Committee member Jaribu Hill has been organizing the Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference (SHROC) for 22 years. Join her and activists from the Global South Dec. 7-9 in Atlanta. Register by October 31 for the early-bird price. Book the group hotel rate by November 13.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has helped kick off a new effort demanding candidates for office provide their position on war and militarization. It’s called Anti-war Autumn and it’s designed to demonstrate public opposition to the permanent war agenda of the duopoly. Use the hashtag, #AntiwarAutumn, on social media to help this campaign gain traction.

A series of actions and events have been planned during this Anti-war Autumn, including BAP launching the U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign to draw attention to the increased normalization of war and militarism on the African continent. Please sign our petition to the Congressional Black Caucus and U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee. Can you help us get to 1,000 signatures this week by sharing the link with your friends?

BAP also continued our effort at building solidarity with peoples and nations in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialism on October 7. That day marked the 17th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in the U.S. empire’s so-called “War on Terror”. BAP member Jose Monzon delivered a statement at an anti-war rally in New York City called by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression NYC, International Action Center, International League of Peoples’ Struggles, and People’s Power Assemblies NYC.

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka recently told Black Agenda Report Radio it is vitally important to give voice to Black folks’ long-held opposition to U.S. militarism abroad. A Black peace movement is necessary, “so we can determine our friends from our enemies, so we don’t allow our young people to be marched off to fight for the interests of the 1 percent against other poor and oppressed people around the world."

Please also attend these events:

Join supporters from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on October 20 at a candlelight vigil and rally for Yemen at the Saudi Embassy, 866 Second Ave., between 46th and 47th streets, in New York City.

Join Ajamu Baraka and representatives from the Black Is Back Coalition and the United National Antiwar Coalition for a panel discussion to “End the Wars at Home and Abroad” October 31 in New York City.

BAP Coordinating Committee member Jaribu Hill has been organizing the Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference (SHROC) for 22 years. Join her and activists from the Global South Dec. 7-9 in Atlanta. Register by October 31 for the early-bird price. Book the hotel with the group rate by November 13.

The war on Black folks is accelerating across the United States—and around the world.

In 2018, the United States spent $267 million on military operations in Africa through its U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) program. The United States says AFRICOM is “fighting terrorism” on the continent. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has evidence to prove otherwise.

Monday marked AFRICOM’s 10th anniversary, the same day BAP launched our campaign to demand the U.S. government shut down this imperialist instrument. Coming on the heels of our first membership meeting, U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM is BAP’s first targeted campaign and represents a significant development in BAP’s ability to engage the warmongers, educate the public and expand our ranks. The campaign will roll out over the next few months.

With the help of supporters abroad, we’ve obtained translations of the petition in French, German and Spanish, with more trslations forthcoming!

We hope everyone will sign the petition, reproduce the materials, organize teach-ins, write op-eds, and help us demonstrate we will not accept the normalization of state violence and U.S. global military dominance in the United States and abroad.

Participate in a national conference call October 18 on militarism featuring BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who is organizing the Women’s March on the Pentagon during #AntiwarAutumn.

BAP Coordinating Committee member Jaribu Hill has been organizing the Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference (SHROC) for 22 years. Join her and activists from the Global South Dec. 7-9 in Atlanta. Register by October 31 for the early-bird price. Book a hotel room with the group rate by November 13.

Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) members spent a day and a half last weekend re-considering our programmatic work and re-organizing our leadership structure, so we can build our capacity for liberation. We left Atlanta energized about our soon-to-be launched U.S. Out of Africa! campaign, as well as related campaigns on demilitarizing the world, and closing U.S. and NATO military bases.

Fortunately, Africans around the world are organizing themselves, too. Hundreds of delegates who met in Ghana for a Pan-Africanist conference held discussions to advance the struggle against capitalism and imperialism.

This week marked a historic visit to the United States by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who spoke at Riverside Church in New York City after addressing the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on the inhumane U.S. blockade against the Caribbean island. Then Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros made a surprise appearance. Watch the video of the whole event documented by our friends at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

The U.S. state has been openly involved in criminal aggression against the Venezuelan state, with almost no opposition from 'progressive forces' in the United States and Europe. It is yet another example of the class-collaborationist character of so much of the Western and U.S. left—and why it is political suicide for radical Black forces not to be independently organized.

Maduro said in his address to the UNSC: "I bring the truth of a country that has not surrendered, a historic people that resisted colonial empires in centuries past, I bring the voice of a people who have the honor of being the birthplace of the Liberator Simón Bolívar … Our nation is a country that is harassed and attacked. Yesterday, in this very spot, the President of the United States of America spoke once again against the noble people of Venezuela."

Even Bolivian President Evo Morales looked Trump directly in the eye and recalled that the United States had orchestrated a coup in Iran back in the 1950s to stop that country’s quest for self-determination.

In a further repudiation of the United States, North Korea and South Korea jointly declared the end of the war on Korea and announced their joint bid to host the 2032 Olympics. They also pledged to create rail and road links between the North and the South within the next year, stop military drills aimed at each other along the military demarcation line that divides the North and the South by November 1, among other moves that express cross-border solidarity. China and Russia called for U.S. sanctions on North Korea to be eased as well. All of this points to the diminishing position of the United States in an increasingly multilateral world.

China even came out with a new party line: It is trying to save the world from the United States, which at this point can only boast of its military prowess while its people go hungry and homeless at alarming rates.

The World Peace Council that BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka attended released a final declaration on its 5-day meeting in the Dominican Republic. This document is unlike the final declaration released by the Trilateral Peace Conference, which was held during the same week.

Participate in a national conference call October 18 on militarism featuring Ajamu Baraka and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who is organizing the Women’s March on the Pentagon during #AntiwarAutumn.

Since we at the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) are preparing for this weekend’s membership meeting, we’ll keep this update brief.

The bipartisan rip-off of the public continues. While we are being entertained by the antics of Trump, the Senate with almost no opposition passed another record defense bill.

"The funding total—approved by a 93-7 vote—amounts to an increase of more than 3 percent for military spending in fiscal 2019.”

Last week, BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka attended the Trilateral Peace Conference (US, Canada, Mexico), which was held in conjunction with the Hemispheric Peace Conference of the World Peace Council and its affiliates. Conference attendees issued a final declaration on their path forward.

Please also try to attend these events:

Tonight in Atlanta: BAP is hosting another AFRICOM panel, this time in Atlanta on September 20 at Morehouse College.

Ruling-class newspapers like The New York Times may try to spin the U.S. invasion of Africa as only expanding under Trump.

Yet it was Barack Obama who dramatically increased AFRICOM operations. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) launched a few months before he took office. Most African states had expressed significant opposition to AFRICOM until the United States and NATO attacked and destroyed the Libyan state in 2011. That war forced other African countries to confront the possibility of an invasion ruining their countries, too. Today, 53 out of 54 African countries keep military-to-military relationships with the United States. But let's be clear: AFRICOM wasn’t established to fight so-called “terrorism”, but to continue the neo-colonial process of extracting Africa's resources and keeping out potential infrastructure-development partners like China.

This is why the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is launching the U.S. Out of Africa! campaign on AFRICOM’s 10th anniversary, coming up on October 1. To find out how you can get involved in defeating the war on Africa, sign up for U.S, Out of Africa! updates.

Although the U.S. ruling class tries to co-opt September 11 as only the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., it is also remembered as the anniversary of another massacre. BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka discussed the impact of the 1973 U.S.-aided military coup of Chile that tortured, disappeared and executed tens of thousands of Chilean leftists. What is happening now with the United States having met with counter-revolutionary plotters for a year in its attempt to intervene in Venezuela looks eerily similar.

It is because of U.S. crimes against humanity that the United States faces prosecution in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for torturing detainees in Afghanistan. It also defended settler-colonial ally Israel’s abuse of Gazans. Of course, the short-sighted bully that it is, the United States has only inflamed matters by threatening sanctions on ICC judges and prosecutors.

A documentary exposing Israel’s attack on the Black Lives Matter movement for its support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign proves Black internationalism is a threat to the global structure of oppression.

We recommend you read a review of a book for which Ajamu wrote a foreward called “The Einstein File: The FBI’s Secret War Against the World’s Most Famous Scientist”.

Russia says the United States dropped white phosphorus on Syria. This is interesting because that means the United States is using chemical weapons. Are we surprised? Perhaps this will mark the start of WWIII. We hope not.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) marked its 70th anniversary this week. BAP supports the right of the people of the DPRK to determine their national direction.

Please also try to attend these events:

BAP is hosting another AFRICOM panel, this time in Atlanta on September 20 at Morehouse College. BAP member organizations Pan-African Community Action and Friends of the Congo have endorsed this event, along with Morehouse's African American Studies Department.

We were touched by the response we got from the public when we asked you a few days ago to support us so we could keep our independent voice. We want to thank all who gave a little or a lot, but we are not there yet. We still have four days to reach our goal of $10,000—and we are far from it. Give today, freedom fighters. Dig deep because we too are digging deep to build this alliance as a structure for liberation and transformation.

The national prison strike continues into its final week, but prisoners are not just raising their voices for people who are locked up after being convicted. They’re bringing attention to migrants and refugees in detention centers as well as folks with disabilities, who make up a large portion of the prison population.

The Women’s March on the Pentagon, scheduled for October 20-21, is part of Anti-war Autumn, a campaign designed so electoral candidates cannot avoid the questions of imperialism and war. BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka said, “We’ve got to put the so-called ‘New Wave’ Democrats on notice that we’re not going to allow them to get elected without clearly stating where they stand on U.S. militarism.” Listen to the interview.

The U.S. empire as well as its allies in the European Union and NATO have been increasing the volume of its propaganda against emerging powers like China. Comedian and activist Lee Camp explains how to create a U.S.-backed coup, and much of it involves tricking the population with lies. The Forum on Africa-China Cooperation concluded this week with an agreement to increase dialogue and strengthen ties to continue economic development in the form of the Belt and Road Initiative. Already, more than 3,000 miles of motorways and railways have been built in African countries.

If you are of African descent and would like to attend this first mass membership meeting, become a member. You will then receive information about how to register for first membership meeting.

Please also try to attend these other events:

BAP endorsed the annual Brooklyn-Wide March Against Gentrification, Racism and Police Violence that is taking place September 15 in New York City. Please RSVP, get your organizations to endorse this march and participate!

Tuesday marked the 500th anniversary of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which escalated the Pan-European colonial project. This endeavor looted whole continents and committed genocide on a scale never before recorded.

The Pan-European colonial project is underway to this day as 2.2 million people (mostly Black and Brown) are incarcerated. But the oppressed are rising up. This year’s National Prison Strike—from August 21 to September 9—is shaking up this racist, capitalist system that profits off incarcerated bodies, forcing inmates to pay exorbitant sums for basic needs like food and phone calls to loved ones. In the face of suppression such as prison lockdowns, concessions have been made that appear coincidental: Texas’ correctional system lowered the cost of making phone calls by 75 percent. BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley writes of this transitional program to get free: “Hopefully, they won’t be betrayed by quisling civil rights misleaders, as in 2010.” Read more. Meanwhile, BAP Coordinating Committee member Netfa Freeman’s radio segment reports on the prison strike, as well as on Black August, its progenitor. Here’s a roundup of reports on the prison strike.

With it being Black August, we have no choice but to talk about the impact of the 2014 Ferguson unrest after the murder of Mike Brown. BAP Coordinating Committee member Lamont Lilly interviewed a Ferguson activist who says, "... as Black people, there are no safe spaces for us—only places of limited intellectual and physical refuge."

This past weekend, the internet and airwaves popped off with revisionism on the life of the late U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). The reaction demonstrated once again that the United States is a right-wing nation. We must come to terms with that reality before we can confront it. It is immoral for oppressed people and people who understand the nature and consequence of U.S. militarism to claim McCain is a hero. For example, U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said, "Senator John McCain was a warrior for peace.” People should not be surprised by Lewis’ remark. He is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), a body that voted to continue the 1033 program that is largely responsible for militarizing the police, and terrorizing Black and Brown communities in the United States. Lewis also voted to make the police a protected class and voted in favor of the obscene $717 billion military budget. Like McCain, these folks in the CBC are criminals who serve the ruling elite and the imperialist project of this country.

Folks, capitalism has advanced to the point where a leader of an imperialist country is now admitting to being "unashamed" to consider the United Kingdom's "national interests." Theresa May is making a trip to Africa to discuss its aid program. We know "aid" takes poor people deep into neo-colonialism. And we shouldn't be surprised if they withhold that aid unless South Africans and other Africans agree to not take back land stolen by white farmers.

We should all be concerned about the neo-colonialism taking place on the African continent. Aside from the older European imperial powers trying to keep their hands on Africa, the United States has announced it is building a $280 million drone base in Niger by the year 2024. The work BAP is developing on AFRICOM is ever more important as the United States moves further into occupying Africa to exploit it and keep out other potential infrastructure-development partners like China.

We must also be wary of how the United States and its allies start rumors that can turn whole countries against one another. One U.S. member of an independent United Nations body claimed China was interning 1 million Muslims, but failed to name a single source. The Western corporate media ran with it anyway and now we have folks all over social media talking about this, which not only demonizes China—it racializes China and sets up the United States for starting a war.

Folks, we hear from some of you every week, with appreciation for our work. Did you know we are a grassroots organization that doesn’t take money from corporations or foundations? We know some of you are worried about the state’s collaboration with communications and technology corporations. The state is coming for BAP, and it might happen sooner than we think. The only way we will win is with the support of the masses. We’re organizing our first membership meeting for September 21-22 in Atlanta to consolidate our forces. Only you can help us raise $10,000 to make this meeting happen and beat back the U.S. empire.

If you would like to attend, become a member. You will then receive information about how to register for first membership meeting.

If you’re on social media, the National Prison Strike in the United States is hard to miss. More than 2.2 million people (mostly Black and Brown) are behind bars, many working for pennies an hour as modern slaves—and being denied their human rights. The white-supremacist ruling class considers Blacks economically redundant and finds us more valuable as slaves. That is why folks are withholding their labor.

In a show of international solidarity, Palestinian prisoners have linked with this rebellion: “We extend a special revolutionary salute to the imprisoned strugglers of the Black Liberation Movement and other liberation movements, including Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose consistent internationalism and principled struggle is known and resonates around the world.”

Here on this stolen land, Black folks in the Black-run city of Baltimore may not be incarcerated. But judging by how vigorously they are policed, they too are being denied their human rights. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), along with a number of national and local groups, organized a discussion last Saturday on the connection between domestic repression and global U.S. militarism, with a focus on the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). The program provided a peek into BAP’s campaign on the U.S. re-invasion and occupation of Africa, which will be launched October 1, the 10th anniversary of AFRICOM. Watch the video of our panel discussion, “U.S. Military Occupation of Black Communities and the Age of AFRICOM”.

The unfinished revolution in South Africa took a significant step toward justice with the government moving to take back land stolen by Dutch and English colonialists when they invaded the territory more than 100 years ago. However, even this effort will not reverse the general perception that the interests of the African majority have been subordinated to the interests of the white minority by the Black elites who came to power in the 1990s.

Maurice Carney of BAP member organization Friends of the Congo argues the assassination of Congo’s Patrice Lumumba was the most important of the 20th century: "For both the U.S. and Belgium, keeping Congo weak, dependent and impoverished best serves their strategic interests, which includes access to precious and strategic minerals in order to fuel their military, aerospace, technology, electronics and automobile industries."

Our friends in Latin America are waging their own battle against the Pan-European colonial project. Venezuela has begun using the Sovereign Bolivar (Bs.S.), which will be anchored to the cryptocurrency Petro, which is backed by the oil reserves of the Caribbean, and not tied to the U.S. dollar. This an effort to operate independently of the grip of U.S. imperialism.

Meanwhile, embattled former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is officially running for president after repression by a U.S.-supported right-wing government in Brazil.

In Guatemala, more than 40 social organizations demanded on Sunday that the government stop the murder and criminalization of human rights defenders. Activists charged U.S.-backed President Jimmy Morales with expanding the war.

BAP member Glen Ford writes in Black Agenda Report that “Silicon Valley and the corporate media are far more effective in conjuring alternative realities than the chaotic Trump White House.” Read more here.

The Saudis dropped a 500-pound MK-82 bomb on a school bus, killing 54 Yemeni children and injuring dozens who were riding a school bus this past week. The murder of these innocent beings has justice-minded people demanding an end to the U.S.-funded Saudi war on this poor country. Yemen holds a strategic position at the junction of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

What is sad is this violation of U.S. and international laws has received so little media coverage. Over the past three years, the Saudi government has attacked civilians at weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals—and the U.S. media has barely spoken up. Why would it? As mouthpieces for the ruling class, it turns away from the injustice and distracts people with the fake news of Russiagate.

In the Mediterranean region, refugees were recently denied entry into Italy. The migrant situation has taken a turn, with neocolonial powers such as Spain, Britain, Italy and Portugal refusing to accept refugees. This further traumatizes the hundreds of thousands of poor people who have already tried to escape European neocolonialism on the African continent, scraping together enough money to find their way across the continent, making the dangerous journey through the Sahara Desert, then being stranded on a boat because it is not allowed to disembark at the shores of these criminal states that are responsible for the misery.

Africans leave because their home countries cooperate with the United States. In a piece about NATO being a protection racket, Ann Garrison writes, “Wikileaks provides a wealth of primary source material about Africa and every other corner of the world as seen through the eye of the empire and its vassals and opponents.” Strangely enough, the so-called left in the United States has swung in favor of NATO, all because Trump has spoken out against NATO. But BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka says, “The responsibility of the left is to build on Trump’s anti-NATO remarks—whatever his motivations—by offering a real critique of NATO.” Read Ajamu’s latest piece on warmongering by both Republicans and Democrats.

More strange things are coming out of Washington in its push to overthrow the Bolivarian state of Venezuela. Now the United States says Brazil—a country it has helped turn right-wing—should “lead the solution to Venezuela”. If this sounds a little out there, consider the United States had announced years ago it intended to conduct “unconventional warfare” in its quest to disrupt people’s movements in Latin America. BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley writes, “Anyone who claims to be anti-war must also oppose the ongoing horrors visited upon the Venezuelan people. They are suffering and dying because of decisions made by the bipartisan war party.” Read more of her take on the U.S. war being waged on Venezuela.

Last week, we told you about how Alex Jones being shut down on internet platforms was actually the start of the latest censorship move aimed at the left. In case you didn’t hear, both Venezuelanalysis.com and Telesur were recently censored by Facebook. Folks, the state may be coming for BAP soon. That’s why we need all of the support we can get. We’re organizing our first membership meeting for September 21-22 in Atlanta. Only you can help us raise $10,000 to beat back this empire.

EVENTS

This Saturday in Baltimore: Join BAP, member organizations Friends of the Congo and Pan African Community Action (PACA), and other prominent Black activists for a panel discussion about the militarization of Black communities and the impact of AFRICOM on Black folks. This event is happening in the same city where news just broke about a Black Baltimore police officer punching a man. Color doesn’t matter because all police officers are tools of the repressive state.

Seventy-three years ago, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 100,000 people on the day of the attacks and tens of thousands more in the following months.

The United States is still the only country to use an atomic weapon against human beings. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) supports a 2017 United Nations treaty to ban all nuclear weapons. We say the right to life is the ultimate human right with war being the ultimate violator of that right. Yet, contemporary policymakers in the Obama and Bush administrations, who had made the Dr. Strangelove character seem rational, had quietly engaged in discussions about the tactical feasibility of limited nuclear war, as if a nuclear war could possibly be contained. Read more about our position in our statement.

The devastation wreaked on Japan by the atomic bombs doesn’t seem to matter to the United States, though. This criminal state has only continued waging war across the globe, with U.S. troops stationed on every continent and murderous invasions and occupations taking place throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Just this week, the Trump administration re-imposed sanctions on Iran, escalating its drive to war in yet another country in west Asia.

Meanwhile, the United States and its vassal states are clearly behind the latest attempted assassination of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday. Venezuelans, a people with a proud Bolivarian tradition who have faced years of U.S. aggression, marched in support of their president.

Colombia, a U.S. proxy state, was cited as an actor in the attack on Maduro. Yet the South American country faces its own internal struggle for peace, especially now that a conservative president has been inaugurated. The Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases—of which BAP is a founding member—expressed its solidarity with the popular movements of Colombia: “We denounce that the Colombian state has become an agent of Empire that threatens its own people, the region, and the planet.”

We are happy to announce our website has been revamped. Please pop over there and take a look at our new home page and campaign pages. If you’re interested in becoming a member or supporter, now is the time to do so as we now have the capacity to smoothly process applications.

EVENTS

The breakdown in U.S. society and the collaboration between leftists and liberals continues to disturb many of us. We must intensify our efforts to build the Black Alliance for Peace as a critical formation in the new anti-war movement. We are moving toward our first membership meeting in September. Please help up raise the $10,000 we need to pull off this meeting. Only you can help rebuild this movement.

Join BAP, member organizations Friends of the Congo and Pan African Community Action (PACA), and others for an August 18 panel discussion in Baltimore about the militarization of Black communities and AFRICOM.

The Black Is Back Coalition will hold its annual conference in Saint Louis, this weekend. BAP is a member of this coalition and we encourage everyone to attend.

On Friday, 139 Democrats joined with Republicans to pass a $717 billion National Defense Authorization Act, which included a rider preventing Trump from reducing the amount of U.S. imperialist troops on the Korean peninsula.

This NDAA was approved on the 65th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the outright bombing and destruction of Korea, but didn’t end the U.S. war on the Korean people.

Presidents in recent history have all helped the transnational ruling class loot more and more wealth. Obama’s recent Mandela lecture was a prime example of the cognitive dissonance—or perhaps outright fraud—of these servants of the ruling class. In his lecture, Obama described how globalization led to the politics of fear and resentment, but he wouldn’t acknowledge how global capitalism and his presidency created the conditions for it.

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka also spoke about Democratic Party warmongers and the backwardness of Russiagate in an episode of “Your World News”.

In a recent Black Agenda Report piece, Ajamu writes, “Trump, Sanders, Obama, Mueller, and CNN are mere ideological distractions meant to dull our perceptions and prevent us from coming to terms with the awesome reality of our systemic domination.” So if we want to get angry about reporters and whistleblowers being thrown in jail, we can look at Obama for helping expand the state’s suppression.

It was also during the Obama administration that the United States moved with speed and force into invading and occupying Africa, and developing U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). However, Chinese investment as well as people’s liberation movements are turning the tide.

Democrats like Obama also have supported white supremacist regimes like Israel that have long targeted colonized children like Ahed Tamimi, who was recently freed for defending her people on their land.

In China, the state is punishing 37,000 officials for breaching a frugality code. If we applied that standard in the United States, we’d have no one left in the Senate or the White House but the people who clean those buildings!

One of the congresspeople we know would still be left in the building if a frugality code was enacted would be the late Brother Ron Dellums. The indomitable anti-war, anti-militarism congressman, recently died. He loudly advocated for reparations for Black peoples and for African liberation movements. We recognize his creativity and spirit. Presente, Ron!

EVENTS

The breakdown in U.S. society and the collaboration between leftists and liberals continues to disturb many of us. We must intensify our efforts to build the Black Alliance for Peace as a critical formation in the new anti-war movement. We are moving toward our first membership meeting in September. Please help up raise the $10,000 we need to pull off this meeting. Only you can help rebuild this movement.

Join BAP, member organizations Friends of the Congo and Pan African Community Action (PACA), and others for an August 18 panel discussion in Baltimore about the militarization of Black communities and AFRICOM.

The Black Is Back Coalition will hold its annual conference in Saint Louis, August 11-12. BAP is a member of this coalition and we encourage everyone to attend.

Did you notice? Liberals didn’t bother to condemn the new Israeli apartheid law. Nor did they say a word about that settler-colonial state’s recent attacks on Gaza.

We must be clear racist settler-colonial assault happening anywhere affects oppressed folks everywhere. Israelis have been training police forces in every state of the United States on their brutal methods of suppression they have practiced on the long-suffering Palestinians.

The increased militarization of U.S. society makes allowances for white violence on oppressed peoples on this stolen land. Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, already notorious for protecting George Zimmerman when he killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, is now shielding another white supremacist who has a history of harassment.

Washington, D.C.-based BAP member organization Pan-African Community Action (PACA) advocates for community control of the police, which would allow people to protect their communities without involving the racist state and their goons. “The issue is not training, but the policies of the police as determined by the government that takes its cues from the ruling class,” said BAP Coordinating Committee member Netfa Freeman, who works with PACA. He was quoted at a recent meeting where residents grilled their elected officials.

Of course, the militarization of U.S. society inevitably reflects in U.S. imperialism abroad, including in Central America.

Another way the ruling class has suppressed revolutionary fervor on this stolen land has been through oppressed peoples’ need to identify with their oppressor, a type of Stockholm Syndrome happening right here in real time. BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley connects respectability politics to the latest odd collaboration between Black folks and the Democratic Party: “We must acknowledge that despite 400 years of existence here we will never be considered full citizens. There is no ‘we’ or ‘us’ when we discuss the individuals and entities who run this country.”

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka recalls how the most powerful unelected elements in the state had long ago moved to take down a president, and wonders why it wouldn’t happen again today.

Among the many insights Ajamu made on “A Trump Show”, a podcast by Dennis Trainor, Jr., include the foolish collaboration between leftists and liberals, making all so-called radicals a “suspicious class.”

The breakdown in U.S. society and the collaboration between leftists and liberals continues to disturb many of us who have been analyzing the repressive nature of the U.S. empire. It is all the more reason to intensify our efforts to build the alliance as a critical formation in the new anti-war movement. As we move toward our first membership meeting in September, please help us raise the $10,000 we need to pull it off. Only you can help rebuild this movement.

The Black Is Back Coalition will hold its annual conference in Saint Louis, August 11-12. BAP is a member of this coalition and we encourage everyone to attend.

The ongoing and deepening crisis of U.S. society has caused anger, fear and confusion. The precipitous decline of the standard of living for millions of people in the United States helped produce the conditions for the election of Trump. This, in turn, created the Democrats' irrational anti-Russia position. The problem, of course, is that whether it is taking aggressive, militaristic positions with either Russia or North Korea, pushing an already unstable and reckless Trump administration to be more forceful is a dangerous position that could easily pull the United States into yet another military conflict. But that is precisely what the Democrats and their liberal allies have been demanding, with potentially disastrous consequences for millions.

Fortunately, in the midst of an environment that seems to be ripe for war, more and more people are seeing the need for a new anti-war movement. BAP has received messages asking us to become more visible and wanting to know the state of the broader anti-war and anti-imperialist movement in the United States.

This is why it is absolutely imperative we intensify our efforts to build the alliance as a critical formation in the new anti-war movement. As we are moving toward our first membership meeting in September, please help up raise the $10,000 we need to pull off this meeting. Only you can help rebuild this movement.

This week, BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley talks about the madness of liberals, in this case Black liberals on Russiagate and U.S. violence: “Black people should be first in line when it comes to casting doubt on the work of intelligence agencies and federal prosecutors. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) ought to uphold the proud tradition of defying corrupt law enforcement. Instead they prove themselves to be happy tools of the neoliberal war party.”

While Democrats and much of the U.S. left collude with the ruling elite and its war agenda, U.S. military planning continues with very little notice and no effective opposition. Nick Turse reveals how the use of small, mobile special forces units are being used around the world by the Pentagon, especially in Africa.

Most commentators on the Putin-Trump summit, either missed or deliberately failed to call attention to one of the main points of interests for the United States and Russia—the so-called Middle East, and in particular Syria and Israel because of how both countries are connected to their mutual interests. The Russians, who are interested in advancing their interests in the region, have always collaborated with the United States and other Western powers on key issues related to Israel. Geopolitical analyst Andrew Korybko suggests that during those two hours between Putin and Trump, they developed a common understanding and commitment on Iranian influence in Syria and the interests of Israel.

State violence and repression in the United States is of central concern for BAP. Efia Nwangaza, director of the Malcolm X Center for Self Determination in Greenville, South Carolina, and recent BAP representative as an election observer in Venezuela, provides an update on a dangerous situation in the South Carolina prison system.

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka’s observations on the crisis around the world and in the United States can be found here.

Activist Danny Haiphong says left-wing organizers and journalists must raise the issue of imperialist war because the United States uses trillions of dollars stolen from workers and poor people to destabilize nations abroad.

The BAP bi-monthly conference call will take place Saturday. Details were sent to the BAP member listserv.

We are also moving toward our first in-person membership meeting, scheduled for September 21-22 in Atlanta, Georgia. Members, save that date and look out for more information.

The Black Is Back Coalition will hold its annual conference in Saint Louis, August 11-12. BAP is a member of this coalition and we encourage everyone to attend.

The 28-year-old Black woman died in police custody and her demise illustrates the "historically-rooted brutal experience of Black women within the U.S. prison industrial complex," according to Black Perspectives.

We at the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) have been committed to connecting the mass incarceration and militarization of Black communities to the workings of the criminal U.S. state that serves the transnational capitalist class. We will be releasing materials on our work in the coming months.

In an interview about the role of the Supreme Court, BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, historian Rudy Acuna, and National Lawyers Guild leadership sought to put into historical context the anxiety many felt regarding the vacancies Donald Trump is able to fill.

Ajamu said:

“The Supreme Court has never been an institution beyond and above the politics of white supremacy … as are all the elements of the U.S state.”

“In other words, the court as an instrument reflecting the race and class power of the ruling elite should never be seen as source of protection for the long-term collective human rights of Black/African people in the United States.”

Ajamu went on to say:

“Non-state alternative power is the only path open for resistance at this moment in history. The articulation of a set of rights that people are prepared to struggle for as part of a transitional program is a first step that will need to be followed up with intensified organizing.”

“Nothing has changed for us because of Trump’s nomination. Our task continues to be to organize, educate and build resistance.”

The BAP bi-monthly conference call will take place July 21. Information to register for the call will be sent to the BAP member listserv.

We are also moving toward our first in-person membership meeting, scheduled for September 21-22 in Atlanta, Georgia. Members, save that date and look out for more information.

The Black Is Back Coalition will hold its annual conference in Saint Louis, August 11-12. BAP is a member of this coalition and we encourage everyone to attend.

We at the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) ask the white-supremacist imperialists’: Independence for who? Certainly not for the oppressed.

An independence day means nothing to those of us who have been the victims of their crimes on this stolen land and around the world.

The young slave owners in the “American” colony wanted independence from their colonial government, so they could be free to steal more indigenous land and expand slavery. Once freed from King George, they embarked on a murderous rampage, where they raped, enslaved, burnt villages, and killed men, women and children from one coast to the other. Their crimes against humanity earned them a continent 200 years ago and their ongoing violent criminality is what maintains their fragile dominance today.

For us, independence must mean independence from them if we want life, justice and peace. As long as we are under their control, our children and the children of countless others will never know peace. That is why we struggle, that is why we build, and that is why we come to you and ask you to support us. But it is also why we come to you and ask you to join us in struggle.

If you have not donated to BAP, please consider becoming a monthly sustainer for just $10 a month. You can also give a generous tax-exempt donation of any amount. Remember that we don’t receive any corporate or foundation money—we exist completely on support from our members, supporters and the public.

We are moving toward our first membership meeting scheduled for September 21-22 in Atlanta, Georgia. Members, save that date and look out for more information.

The Black Is Back Coalition will hold its annual conference in Saint Louis, August 11-12. BAP is a member of this coalition and we encourage everyone to attend.

Puerto Rican sister Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pulled an electoral upset in New York, knocking off an entrenched leader of the Democratic Party. Ocasio ran as a socialist and has a strong platform on what she calls the peace economy. However, she ran as a Democrat and took some troubling positions, including repeating Democratic Party talking points on Russia-gate and not quite finding her grounding on presenting her socialist politics. BAP Coordinating Committee member and Black Agenda Report Senior Editor and Contributor Margaret Kimberley provides an insightful analysis of this campaign, the challenges Ocasio-Cortez faces, as well as what seems to happen in the left community when a leftist enters a space usually denied to us.

Why are thousands of Central Americans fleeing violence and economic devastation and flocking to the United States? Because of the American dream? Because the streets are paved in gold?

If you’ve been following us over the past year, you know we keep it real.

U.S. multi-national corporations’ and finance capital’s penetration of nations and control of peoples have wreaked the economic distortions, social violence, austerity and lack of democracy that push and pull people to leave their countries in search of security, peace and material survival.

Yet these issues are presented as if they just descended from the heavens.

What we are seeing is the inevitable and predictable consequences of the policies of successive U.S. administrations over the last three decades—all with the understanding that the neoliberal agenda would require a wall be built on the U.S.-Mexico border.

NAFTA caused the first wave of migration, wherein millions of farmers were uprooted, thousands of women were forced into the slave conditions of the Maquiladoras and thousands of men sought sometimes dangerous work in the United States and Canada.

Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) understand the link between the U.S.-backed coup in Honduras during the Obama administration and the subsequent violence and social instability that compelled so many to make the long trek from that embattled nation.

And we don’t forget the irony that the one nation in Central America in which conditions didn’t force people to leave is Nicaragua, a state now engulfed in an intensifying social conflict that many suggest is being supported by elements of the U.S. state and its affiliated institutions.

Migration is a class issue and migrants have human rights that must be protected. They don’t lose their human rights just because they cross a border and are “undocumented.” Unfortunately, U.S. officials’ understanding of what constitutes human rights is incredibly narrow. The United States doesn’t respect the human rights of migrants because they don’t even recognize the human rights of their own citizens. This was reflected in the recently released United Nations report on growing U.S. poverty.

And while people are outraged—as they should be—that families were being busted up and children were being taken away and objectively imprisoned, it is important to note this classist and racist assault is not anything new for Black people. This leads BAP Coordinating Committee member and Black Agenda Report Senior Editor Margaret Kimberley to ask why the public has no sympathy for Black people.